Aditya Birla Group, a brand with power, connectivity, strength, fashion, capital and mobility moves with a vision “To become a premium global conglomerate” and stands tall in the marketplace with revenue of $44.3 billion in 2018. It has successfully entered each one of our lives and made its place in the Fortune 500 Companies.
Being a regular customer of Pantaloons,I personally relate to the brand because I believe that your outward appearance speaks volumes about you. Having a sophisticated dressing sense and feeling confident in your attire can really make a difference in the way you conduct things. Pantaloons being one step ahead has always lived up to its expectations especially for middle income people. Just right prices of the apparel coupled with quality and latest fashion has always found its way in my shopping bag.
Moreover, while entering in my dream B-School Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) which was an entirely different phase of my life, Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail came in handy providing me with the best range of formals for women which have now become a part and parcel of my life. The store collection at Allen Solly and Van Heusen exclusively for women caught my attention with its prime, classy material and design. Also, belonging to a family which is an exclusive retailer of Ultra Tech Cement, the same has made a strong impression in my life. Enjoying the benefits associated with the brand for a long time, I have found myself to be more attached with the Aditya Birla Group altogether. Also, a highlight for the group has been its CSR activities with investments exceeding Rs. 500 crores for Community Initiatives and Rural Development and this noble cause has made its mark, substantially on the lives of all people.
Life is made of ups and downs and even a smooth heartbeat means we are dead. The biggest challenge that I have faced in my life was two years prior, when I was the Management Head of Gen-X Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship Cell (GIIEC) of my college Harcourt Butler Technological Institute. The lack of a startup culture and entrepreneurship environment enabled me to take an initiative to create an E-cell in the college. Along with two of my peers, I started the process and faced my first biggest challenge in the form of formulating a team who shared the same passion as us and had the tenacity to work for it. The team building task was very crucial for us, as it was going to have a huge stake in the future of the cell. The process of building a team seemed to me a complex one due to the large number of applications received which made it altogether difficult to filter and come to a consensus. There were differences among the three of us originally in formulating the team, which could only be solved after efficiently communicating with each other and delving deep into each other’s opinions and reasoning them out. This was a great learning curve for me as I understood the significance of transparency among peers and the value of being assertive and logical in the real world.
My team entered the National Entrepreneurship Challenge (NEC’2017) held by IIT Bombay in which various tasks had to be completed in a stretch of 7 months. I had to manage a team of 20 people and conduct a series of events within a stipulated time in our college, each of which carried points which were to be awarded on the basis of our performance. The unique nature of the competition which demanded full concentration and dedication for 7 months enthralled the team to actively undertake the responsibilities and align all the tasks to achieve a common goal. During the challenge it became really difficult for me to manage my time between academics and co-curricular activities. That is when I added an essential skillset of time management and multi-tasking. This approach really helped me to firstly measure my challenges and then structure them in my mind.
The finals saw 3 teams which were called to attend the E-summit’2017 at IIT- Bombay. Each team was fiercely prepared to showcase their mettle and gave immense competition. The overall experience of that competition taught us so much. Moreover, now connecting all the dots I see all these factors aided me and our team to secure the second position among 437 colleges in the NEC’17. The process couldn’t have ended well and after returning to college we had an operating E-Cell within 1 month and also E-summit planned in the same year which was a cherry on the cake for the team and the college.